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Three-dimensional movies are everywhere these days, and the novelty is poised to become a big-screen mainstay. Now the field of microscopy is getting into the act, too, but the end product is very different from 3-D movies such as Toy Story 3 or Avatar.

Each three-dimensional frame, or snapshot, comes from a series of two-dimensional samplings of the specimen under illumination by an electron beam. The specimen is imaged at a number of viewing angles by varying its tilt with respect to the beam, producing a collection of two-dimensional glimpses that together yields a 3-D map of the object.